The New Macho

What does it mean to be ‘assertively, self-consciously male’ now?

Men are certainly under attack from all sides at the moment—whether it’s the endless list of celebrity bad boys or the sociologists who have come to fame by pointing out the statistical impotence of men at-large. Apparently males these days watch porn 50 times a week, on average, play endless video games, fail out of school, and are increasingly anti-social.

Those of us with testosterone and a well-meaning heart, we don’t have much room to maneuver. For a good number of guys in my cohort (40s, white, from supposedly forward-looking backgrounds), the double bind of manhood predates the most recent attacks. Our feminist moms told us to be just like them to be loved. For our dads, the idea of macho got lost in some encounter group somewhere (except for Burt Reynolds in Semi-Tough, when he is supposed to piss himself during a EST conference but sneaks in a catheder flask taped to his leg as back-up, which, ironically, I have a clear memory of going to see with my dad). So we just gave up on being macho.

If there is a gender war, men have just decided to gather up their marbles and go home. Virtual sex is better than real sex with a complex woman. Hanging with the boys over a beer and watching a game is better than getting your manhood wrapped around your eardrums. “Pass me the remote,” is the mantra in response to getting kicked in the nuts.

So, The Good Men Project is about encouraging men to get their mojo back, to be proud of their manliness, to see good where we have been conditioned to be ashamed of our instincts, to ultimately define a new macho that does good in the world.

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I am not debating the statistics about manhood. I realize that we are, in the majority, a group of Internet-obsessed masturbators with deep-seated emotional issues. I’m proud to be a member of that group.

No, my issue is that we collectively, male and female, are obsessed with the worst of the worst when it comes to men rather than the best of the best. An 18-year-old kid gets drunk and does something stupid and disgusting, but frankly no more stupid or disgusting than I did drunk when I was 18—and dare I say most guys and a lot of women, too? Yet because this kid has even the hint of celebrity—he was one of 75 hopefuls on the U.S. Ski development team—it leads the national news and blows up into an international story.

Meanwhile 18-year-old boys we all sent to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight our wars—wars that, arguably, we will never win—lay down their lives in silence. Those guys are macho in my book, for sure. We just choose not to focus on them.

“A real man doesn’t lie or cheat or beat his chest, but stares down things that seem impossible—like flying at the speed of sound or walking on the moon—and doing them anyways,” I recently wrote in a piece about astronauts, but I might as well have been referring to all men.

“The New Macho” is a guy who has an aggressive moral compass that prioritizes the things that he finds important—family, being honest, making a difference in the world. He goes all out to figure that out, yet he is also more apt to take risks “and stare down things that seem impossible.”

“The New Macho” is a guy who has an aggressive moral compass that prioritizes the things that he finds important—family, being honest, making a difference in the world. He goes all out to figure that out, yet he is also more apt to take risks “and stare down things that seem impossible.”

Our economy is in a heap of trouble: untenable national debt, historical high rates of unemployment, stagnant growth. The one thing we still do best in the world is figure out new ideas and build huge, revolutionary businesses around them. We are still the world’s best innovators.

If we are going to save ourselves economically, it’s because of companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

These companies were all founded by men who believed in the power of their own ideas to transform the world in ways that no one else really thought possible. And it’s their ideas that are most important. While Steve Jobs and Marc Zuckerberg are certainly huge personalities, their genius is in their innovation, not in their haircut or their editorials. One could even argue that the personalities of the male founders of huge companies tend to be neutral to negative. But the power of their product innovation is so great that they succeed despite themselves. They risk it all and stare down the impossible, proving themselves macho for sure. In the end, the personalities are not an intrinsic part of the business. The founder’s fundamental insight into the market is.

Take Jobs, who suddenly-but-inevitably stepped down from his position as C.E.O of Apple and then tragically died after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer. In his New York Times piece, David Streitfeld quoted Jobs biographer, Alan Deutschman, as saying:

The big thing about Steve Jobs is not his genius or his charisma but his extraordinary risk-taking. Apple has been so innovative because Jobs takes major risks, which is rare in corporate America. He doesn’t market-test anything. It’s all his own judgment and perfectionism and gut.

Steve Jobs is the new macho.

Then think about the most well-known companies founded by female entrepreneurs: Martha, Oprah, Kate Spade, Gaga, Huffington Post, Mrs. Fields, Mary Kay. These are businesses built around a personality, even named after the founder. They aren’t product innovations—magazines, handbags, cookies, cosmetics—as much as women who have successfully marketed an image of themselves. As such, they aren’t as risky nor as significant in terms of changing the fundamentals of the marketplace.

Certainly one could argue that the workplace, venture capital, and particularly technology are all bastions of male sexism. Despite that, women like Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, and Sheryl Sandberg have played key roles in managing technology companies once they became huge. But not in starting them from scratch, when you have to believe you can walk on the moon because the whole world is telling you that you’re insane.

Is it sexism that causes men to go where women have not yet? I don’t think so. The Internet is a great equalizer. No one cares who the founder of a particular web company is. What they care about is whether or not the product works and solves a fundamental need. Again, people use Facebook despite hating Mark Zuckerberg, for the most part. And frankly, the really great companies are so great from the get-go that venture capital is hardly a roadblock. Google, Facebook, and the like took money only after they were massively successful.

If Mark Zuckerberg had been a woman, the world wouldn’t have boycotted Facebook. If the product worked, we all would have used it—probably more than if an unlikeable guy was the founder. But no woman has stepped forward with a revolutionary idea that has turned into a multi-billion dollar transformative company. And my suspicion has to do with the risk-taking aspect of what it means to be male and macho in 2011.

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I believe in equal pay for equal work and that women and men should be able to make a good living, but If I were a woman I would be sorta proud that so few women are billionaires. Billionaires are basically criminals, no one needs or truly earns that much money. I do think that men more often tend to be risk takers, and that has both goods and bads to it and is a pretty big part of what makes males distinct. I think that guys these days are getting too stuck in their comfort zone in westerm countries… Read more »

I wanted to like this article, but the author rubbed me the wrong way very soon into it. To say “think about the most well-known companies founded by female entrepreneurs” and that they “aren’t product innovations…as much as women who have successfully marketed an image of themselves” then essentially go on to dismiss their work as less important is unfair. I understand that, to men, the work of the women you’ve mentioned may not have changed the life of the average man, but the average woman would beg to differ. You said: “These companies [Google, Facebook, Apple] were all founded… Read more »

The difference between brave and reckless, like the difference between nurturing and coddling, is a great question masculine and feminine men and women have to battle with every day.

Unfortunately the battle between the sexes is still selling well but, more unfortunately, those who have won that battle by not playing it lose sight of the mindset the rest of the world is still stuck in. They get smug, and cynical, and coddling and reckless.

this message is old news in a new light. for me it helps bring to light things i once forgot. men are only seen as superior because thats the way the media portrays us. the biological role f a male is to protect his mate also protect his offspring. these men you mentioned where doing just that. successful people are the ones who appear to be extremely unsuccessful but still have the integrity to keep pushing even though they fail on a consistent basis. these men include guys like Goeorge Washington. as a general he lead an army that was… Read more »

I think Macho is a person who realizes that their own journey to manhood is not complete without mentoring and guiding the emerging generation. When a person accepts responsibility to help others through the challenges of maturation, they themselves discover true manhood. A macho man is nothing more than a man who recognizes his place in the cycle of life and give selflessly.

Tom, thank you for creating a new definition for macho. I believe all men want to fulfill your ideal. We lack the role models and the tools. Your post lays the ground work. I watch your Sing Sing video – you had me in tears. Not from pity, but from feeling your and the men you visited greatness. It’s sad as men we have to experience extreme events to touch launch greatness. I’ve come to feel that as men we are meant to struggle and over come. Steve Jobs did and so did Julio Medina. Let’s create a world where… Read more »

Thanks for this article. I’m a woman and I adore men. I’ve never believed in bashing men, I love them! I do wonder, though, why it’s necessary to compare men to women in the way you’ve done in this article. I love what you say about men, but then why do you have to subtly denigrate women to make your point? If the point of your article is that the modern man is changing the world through risk-taking, developing a strong moral compass, facing difficult situations with bravery (including emotional ones) and innovation (as opposed to brute strength and stoicism,… Read more »

I agree with this comment entirely. I heartily applaud bringing to the fore the wonderful achievements and attributes of the manly man. My son has a very ‘traditional’ marriage which is not one in which I would be fulfilled, but I am so proud the way he takes care of his wife and serves his country. I always knew he would be a manly man type and never desired to take this away. I did, however, encourage him to build up others rather than tear them down to make himself feel big and powerful. And the amount of negative comparisons… Read more »

I think that we have to look at the strengths of each sex independently of the other. The sexes cannot be compared because the sexes are created different but equal. To compare men to women in areas such as parenting, work, sex and relationships is comparing apples to oranges.

The weaknesses of each sex in each of these areas will be counterbalanced by the opposite sexes strength,

The problem with male machismo is that it, unfortunately, assumes that HIS story is in fact history. To suggest that women are not as creative, entrepreneurial or inventive as men simply due to a lack of strong moral compass or a refusal to take risks is to discount (yet again) the many contributions that women have and continue to make in the marketplace. I have included a short list of female inventors below, many of whose research and inventions made possible the achievements and innovations, and in fact may have saved the lives, of the men mentioned in the article.… Read more »

The misogyny in this essay is frightening. To say that women have built their empires — Oprah, Huffington Post, Mrs. Fields — “around a personality, even named after the founder” only serves in this context to bash the women (and too few of them) who have become wildly successful. Was Steve Jobs not building Apple off of his “assoholic” personality? Wasn’t Mark Zuckerburg just trying to score some nookie when he started Facebook in his Harvard dorm?

That bothered me, too. Tom dismisses women-formed companies with one fell swoop. It sort of put me off the rest of the piece which had some very good points. I think we need to be careful….. And Zuckerberg and Jobs were both geniuses but they were rather awful to the women, at least some of the women in their lives. Although it seems both of them cleaned up their acts eventually.

But there is something a little troubling about it, it bothers me that women and men are still brought up to play these roles differently. It tramples on the ideal of individual choice and determination a little. I’d feel more comfortable if these values were as impressed on young women as they are on young men.

Tom Matlack, sometimes I think you must be bi-polar or something. I no sooner finish reading your piece (junks Hot-I.D.) . And here I am thinking to myself “another ‘recovering person’ doing his ‘penance’ by becoming a ‘Mangina’ worshiping at the alter of ‘Femdom’ (like your fellow recovering blogger, Dan Griffen). Then I read this article and couldn’t agree more with you. You hit it dead center on the head. Although Jon Pietz does have a point. Most of this has alway been “macho”. What has changed is that it’s no longer considered “unmacho” to be hands on as a… Read more »

Ditto on the “mangina” comment. I saw my wife push and struggle and agonize for hours (even with drugs) to pump out our two babies. She cried, she groaned, she shit herself. Then she fainted when it was all through. It was the toughest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do–ever–and I was in fucking awe of her.

I want to raise one objection here regarding Steve Jobs. Anyone who attempts to deny paternity by claiming to be infertile, and compounds it by perjuring himself, is not a man. That behavior is evident of a failed human being. Then again, history is rife with utter douchebags accomplishing great things, so I don’t think that this means we can just disregard his sizable achievements. I just would like to put forth the notion that if we’re going to offer him up as a masculine construct, we need to be more careful.

Tom, what you describe as “The New Macho” is not the new macho. It’s what macho has always been and always will be: A person willing to stand up for what they believe in, no matter what the consequences. My hero growing up was Pablo Picasso—a man who once (according to legend) had to burn nearly 2 years worth of his artwork in a fireplace in order to stay warm enough to stay alive. Now that is macho.

The “Girl Power!” movements that began in the 90’s morphed from empowering young girls into BASHING all things male. The endless girl-power­/girls rule/men suck narrative has convinced us that, yeah, everything we do does suck. In any TV commercial wherein a couple tries to figure something out, its the man that must always be portrayed as clueless and the women must always be the one who figures it out. To reverse the roles would be sexist and demeaning to women, but to always portray the man as a fumbling incompeten­t idiot is right and proper in Girl Power! America 2011.… Read more »

Please don’t equate the “girl power” movement with feminism. Any remotely informed feminist scoffs at at it. “Girl power” is about people (often men) making money off of them by dressing them up in scantily clad outfits (while having them claim to be ‘pure’!) and having them sing crappy songs, which usually end up being about boys boys boys anyways. As for the commercial thing, it is pretty annoying, but I’m happy that I’m starting to see more commercials with kids products focus on dads instead of just moms (I just saw a Gogurt commercial do it). I actually used… Read more »

Is anyone else out there tired of seeing only men without chest hair used to represent maculinity on this site? I’m not saying that having chest hair is more masculine than not. It’s not. But, chest hair does happen once in a while. Enough with the Abercrombie & Fitch aesthetic already.

We should remind the women and feminists on this site that when we get angry or call names, we’re no better than the bitter part of the men’s right’s movement that doesn’t really do anything but get angry at the sluts and whores that wronged them (it’s not the whole movement, just waaaay too prominent). A good way to look at these ideas is that we shouldn’t judge or write off ‘typical’ masculinity the same way that we don’t want men or other feminists to look at stereotypical female roles as inferior. As long as no one forces a role… Read more »